the equator

21 April 2009

So, last night didn’t turn out quite like we’d planned. The Italian restaurant we were going to was closed, sadly. It was quite a disappointment, to say the least. We started heading towards the mall, but the traffic was very bad. Then we ended up eating at the American club, just a 5 minute drive from our house. (We’ll try not to think about the time and diesel we wasted up to that point.) We had a nice dinner there, even though we weren’t eating till almost 8:00, I think.

Matthew flew yesterday and today, and has the next two days off (barring unexpected flights). We’re thinking of driving to the equator tomorrow and having a picnic there. I’m mostly not really so hyped up about being at the equator, but at the same time it seems like an opportunity that should be taken when possible.

Today Matthew had a flight that made the rest of us a little jealous. He had to go pick up some people at Murchison Falls. Unfortunately for the girls and me, he found it a little hard to take pictures and fly at the same time, but he saw elephants, hippos, crocodiles, buffalo and a bunch of some kind of deer.

23 April 2009

Yesterday we went to the Equator! It was kind of fun to think of being on the Equator, for real. We ate our picnic lunch as we drove along, and I laughed at all of the funny signs along the way. (We passed the Comprehensive Hotel, the Hotel Stallion, the Best Hotel, the Blessed Supermarket, the Hallelujah Car Wash, Sofa World [it was a small world, after all], Microsoft Phone Center, Kampala International Hair Salon [housed in a refurbished shipping container] and many more.)

At the Equator, we took pictures, looked in the shops and then had a snack in a cafe run by Aidchild. The muffin we had was the biggest muffin I’ve ever seen, and our smoothies and coffee were also jumbo-sized. (Whispering:: I think there must be some Americans around there somewhere...) The drive there and back was beautifully green and I tried to take pictures. Our camera doesn’t take the best landscape pictures to start with and then there was the small problem of not finding any of the pictures from the drive on the camera when we got back. I’m not sure what I did wrong??? The ones from when we’re stopped are there. (More whispering::Matthew left the camera inside the cafe when he paid, and while he went back in to find it, I was debating if finally being able to get a new camera would be worth losing the day’s pictures. He found it. And I still don’t have all the pictures.)

Matthew and I had a date today – lunch and grocery shopping. Truly a married people’s date, eh? :) I had a great salad, which I’m determined to order often since a salad like that isn’t to be found in Mada. Going grocery shopping here is a funny thing. I have to keep stopping to gawk at all of the things that surprise me. Today it was canned soups, barbeque sauce and canned pumpkin. Oh yeah, there were also individual pudding cups for $1 each. Of those things I only bought the barbeque sauce, but it sure is interesting to shop with those options. :)

As I type this, Matthew is working to get an internet connection working at our house. I confess that my faith is small...not because of Matthew, but because apparently the whole scheme isn’t well tested. There is a possibility that I’m guarding myself against disappointment, too. :)